


Cessation

by symphorophilia (klismaphilia)



Series: Darkfics/The Fucked Up Reality In My Head [8]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Antisocial Kylo Ren, Body Modification, Corpse Desecration, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dubious Morality, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Insecurity, Loneliness, M/M, Med Student Ben Solo, Medical Procedures, Mental Instability, Necrophilia, Psychological Horror, Touch-Starved Kylo Ren, Tragic Romance, how do you make a soft necro fic, idk i did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-08 18:15:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8855881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klismaphilia/pseuds/symphorophilia
Summary: Ben Solo is seventeen the first time he sees a corpse in person.He doesn’t fully realize how much of an imprint the event leaves on his mind, of course, until much later.





	1. anhedonia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Larrant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larrant/gifts).



> For PaperKnights, who inspired me to actually post this. I wrote it all between 2 and 4 am.

**Cessation  
...**

 

Ben Solo is seventeen the first time he sees a corpse in person.

The experience, of course, is far more striking than it should be; there’s an intimacy to it, between the tears and the whispered words that part from the gathered relatives’ lips as they peer into that well-decorated coffin, the roses scattered across a too-pale corpse reminders of a youth that was barely had and a life that would never come to fruition. It’s beautiful, in that tragic, Shakespearean way that Ben’s always been so fond of.

The boy’s name escapes him; Ben knows he’s familiar, though, somehow, a few years his junior, though there’s never any obituary, much less a need for most to take interest. He thinks it’s something with an F and a N, but the title has been long-since worn out. A corpse has no need for a name, really. Not when it’s all bundled up inside a coffin and buried deep in the ground, probably to be ripped open by decay and the trifling of maggots.

It’s a shame, he decides, because F-N was very lovely. All dark-mocha skin and piercing eyes that had probably been brimming with emotion at some point. Empty, devoid of life, but striking.

He doesn’t fully realize how much of an imprint the event leaves on his mind, of course, until much later.

 

* * *

 

 

Ben is twenty when he forgoes the name of _Ben Organa-Solo._ In part, it is because there are too many strings attached; the consideration of his mother’s infamous bloodline and the legacy wrought by his war-mongering grandfather and graceful grandmother. The name ‘Organa’ is known, and Ben doesn’t want to _be_ known, hates the constant comparisons between himself and his parents and his Uncle Luke, who had wandered off for some tryst in Kathmandu a few years back.

His entire being urges for separation. Many would call it a case of dramatics, but Ben knows better-- he’s going to sort the mess of adulthood, separation and relationships out on his own, even if it means binge-drinking coffee and picking up a part time job in retail as he hurriedly tries to work his way through an undergrad degree in Biology. His mother still calls every week, worried and yet too pushy, nearly grilling him through an endless array of questions pertaining to his health and his pursuit of education.

Ben starts ignoring the phone when it rings.

He spends more time in the lab, doing work-study with his professor or preparing the makeshift-morgue for the next cadaver lab the school is to be hosting. The official title is “bio-op assistant”, but Ben prefers “mortuary tech”. It makes him feel, for the briefest of moments, a swell of pride, and importance at being something all on his own.

He doesn’t see the point of meshing in with his classmates when they’re too ignorant to notice the difference between a T-5 and a T-12 spinal injury, or the mishmashed operations in the frontal lobe and brain wiring that separates psychopathy from a mood disorder (though, at least he realizes the two are co-morbid and often go hand-in-hand, something his peers are oblivious to.) The time wasted wiping down autopsy tables and preparing for whatever vivisection is yet to come is enjoyable, as it gives him a chance to collect his thoughts.

In this time, he abandons the pretense of _Ben,_ someone that he realizes he has no interest in being in the first place. Not Ben, too predictable and too emotional to keep himself in check, not _Ben,_ who followed the rules with an inquisitive nature that often caused him conflict with others his age, who was too socially inept to make any friends during his high school years.

Somehow, he settles on an amalgamation of names from cadavers dropped off for medical research; there’s a Kyle and an Auren and an Orion and somehow it just makes sense together, _Kylo Ren._ The type of name that would disgust his politician mother, perfectly befitting of a reposed outcast.

He throws himself into his work, from there on out, as Ren. And over time, he steadies himself, figures out what it means to have a _passion,_ a dream that you’d do anything to achieve. It’s a passion Ben would’ve never found, the stuff from those success stories that are ninety percent lies and yet, somehow, his reality.

It’s the fall semester of his junior year when that age-old memory comes back, adrift in the sea of his mind before it crashes on the banks of his consciousness with a demanding, prevailing wave.

Professor Snoke is busy grading an irate senior’s thesis and tasks him to take care in cleaning up the latest ship-in from the morgue upstate; it’s a body in fairly good condition, some kid who died in a motor accident just outside of Sacramento a few days prior. The card listed him as a certified donor and willing participant in research at time of death; Poe Dameron, age 22.

Not much older than him, really; not much older, and when Kylo pulls back that paper-white sheet and drapes it over the edge of the table carelessly, he realizes that Poe isn’t just _his age,_ he’s _handsome._ Overtly handsome, latino and with chiseled features, a coarse mane of tangled, dark hair and eyelashes that brush his cheeks like black cobwebs. He’s got full lips, not chapped the way Kylo’s are, that part easily when Kylo thumbs over them and offers him a weak smile.

By god, he’s smitten, and he’s smitten far too soon.

Poe isn’t dressed, of course, and he’s hardly covered, and Kylo has to take a moment and consider-- how easy would it be for him to maneuver Poe into the back room and return for him after shift? How easy would it be for him to replace the body with someone else before Snoke arrives to look him over? Surely, there are others, others without this spark about them that would be more suited to a classroom setting. Surely he wouldn’t have to cut Poe up, damage that flawless skin and steady visage…

Kylo ends up sliding his gloves on and doing as he’s told anyway.

Not that it matters, in the end, when he shows up a few days after to look through the remains of Poe’s corpse that have been laid into a recently-pressed grave, a picture of him still set atop the headstone like a blessing. Kylo would’ve dug him up, gladly, if he thought the remains might be salvageable in any way.

They weren’t; _medical students_ had destroyed his corpse.

Fuck them all.

 

* * *

 

 

Kylo abandons his job in the morgue his senior year.

It isn’t worth it when he’s forced to deal with pathetic creatures like his fellow tech, Mitaka, who gets squeamish at the sight of blood and the smell of gluteraldehyde and methanol. Mitaka proved equally fruitless as he is annoying when he forgot Kylo’s name altogether and _jumped_ when the older man snapped at him for it. It’s a reaction of weakness spurned by his own incompetence, and if this is what Snoke considers a _good student,_ Kylo would prefer to have nothing to do with them at all.

Instead, he’s substituted one vice for another, taking lengthy walks through the graveyard near campus at night. On occasion, he’ll stop by Poe’s grave; there are flowers there, often, a different color every week, bright oranges and reds and yellows that seem strangely befitting the dead boy. Kylo isn’t a fan of color; he prefers the generic shades of black, white and grey, basic and filled with anhedonia, much like his life. For this reason, he stops visiting early in the year, and makes a habit of cutting paths through the opposite side of the graveyard which remains mostly empty.

Except for the day he shows up to find a heavy tarp laid over the ground and a newly erected grave marker in the dirt.

 _Rey Kenobi,_ it reads. _1997-2016._ Just the name and a date, without even a month to tell of her birth, no caption to speak of a grieving relative. There aren’t any flowers lining the site, only layers upon layers of dirt.

Kylo feels as though he should regret the desperation that seizes his heart upon this discovery. The urges at the center of his being are screaming, wild, telling him to get home and grab a shovel, come back and pull her body out of the earth, keep her for himself, if only to see whether it’s everything he’s imagined in the past. There is always the possibility that her corpse is degraded, or filthy-- but a nineteen year old girl is hardly the least appropriate being to settle his attentions on, right?

He tells himself, again, that he shouldn’t do it.

And, as always, he forgoes the warning; it’s a short walk back to his home, and he doesn’t waste too much time in dragging himself up the stairs into his apartment building, fumbling with his key for a moment before flinging the door open and grabbing the shovel tucked in the hall closet.

There’s no going back now, then.

Not when he’s already half to the graveyard and his blood is _singing_ with the excitement, a glee and a mirth, the thought of his _very own corpse,_ finally, something for him to hold and maintain and care for as he would a friend, or a lover, if he’d ever had one. He thrusts the end of the shovel into the ground and tosses a heap of dirt out beside the ripped tarp, goes forth again and undoes a bit more. The soil is loosely packed, not well maintained, and when he sees the lid of a steel-grey coffin, Kylo has to grit his teeth in anger. How _dare_ they throw her in here so carelessly? How _dare_ they leave her to be eaten up by animals and utterly destroyed by the elements, this fucking _loose soil?_

He pries the lid off with his bare hands.

And-- _oh._

_Oh, yes._

Rey is lovely, really; ravishing in a way he’d yet to experience, her hair done up in an elaborate bun atop her head, dressed in a pale, silvery-sheened robe that hangs from her frame in a manner too angelic for description. Her eyes are still glossy when Kylo pries them open, sinks teeth into his lip at the glance over her still form, reaches to take one of her hands in his and bring it to his mouth.

He kisses her palm, then, the cold flesh a pleasantry like no other.

Ren pulls her out, lays her stretched along the side of the gaping hole in the ground before he starts to fill the hole once more; once he’s laid the tarp over the now-empty grave once more, he leans down, picks her up in his arms, and stands.

They’re going home.

 

* * *

 

 

Kylo thinks he admires Rey for her beauty, most of all. She’s petite and delicate, like a lily, with her pale, incandescent skin and soft features, and he enjoys dressing her. It had been difficult, at first, to explain why he was buying women’s clothes to the manager of the boutique he’d visited; he’d claimed they were for his girlfriend. In a way, he muses, they might’ve been, though for some reason, the word didn’t sit right.

Rey was more like a sister.

She was pretty and small and cool when they held hands, but more than that, she listened, with attentive eyes and a soft, pleasant grin. In his head, Kylo could hear her responding, sometimes; he thinks she might’ve had an accent, something soft and sweet like the rest of her. But Rey is a fighter too, and she’s got scars all over her skin. Kylo had spent ages trying to patch them up, worried she might get sick from the infection.

The thought of losing Rey was a disgusting one, appalling to him in his entirety. Rey was the only company he’d had, and though he couldn’t imagine himself ever having sex with her, he rather likes pulling her into his lap and tucking her head to his chest after a long day at work. He’s found part-time residence as a clerk at the local Wal-Mart, and half the time it’s a blessing that he needs only make small talk with the customers. They likely think him rude, and he probably is, Kylo admits, but people are _so hard,_ when they’re always loud and wild and obnoxious, never listening to him and never understanding his existence.

It’s better when he’s at home, braiding Rey’s hair and sketching her in his notebook like some fictional heroine he’d spent too long searching for.

 

* * *

 

 

Rey’s wounds began to fester a few weeks in. Likely, they had long before that, and the stench was too difficult for Kylo to ignore. He’d had to dump her, brought her back to the graveyard in the late of night and left her beside her headstone, propped up like a doll, her mouth hanging open slightly and her skin beginning to grow overly jaundiced and rotted. Ren realizes, of course, that he was a fool-- _an idiot,_ in not grabbing any embalming fluid or other preserving agents before he’d taken her in. It feels a shame to lose her like this, so soon. Rey is, for lack of other terms, his only companion, and without her there’s an apparent gap in his center.

His life grows dull once more.

Until he meets Armitage.

He’d hardly had the time to involve himself in mundane things such as life at university, so it’s a surprise when he joins the wellness center around midterm in hopes of eventually reclaiming his lab position before semester end; he’s not very involved with the gossip on campus, much less the students, so when he’s passed off to regional for an emergency, Kylo’s heart begins to thrum almost immediately.

Longing, or excitement, he isn’t sure. It’s spent too long festering inside him, lying dormant; he’s only just made it there when he’s greeted with the sight that changes everything.

A man is laid across an operating table beneath a fluorescent light, surrounded by numerous surgeons fidgeting and fussing over whatever had befallen the poor soul.

But it’s not that which catches Kylo’s eye, of course-- no, it’s that bright, vibrant red hair, his deathly pallor, alabaster or porcelain skin that overlays a concave chest, his fragile body slight in comparison to Kylo’s own, even at the reading of his height charts which list him at a good six-foot-one.

He’s not moving, either.

The surgeons have cut a small incision in his abdomen, are pumping roughly on his palpating chest, but the monitors are beeping, loud and distressed, and there’s a resonating stillness when the heart monitor flatlines and the head surgeon pulls away, pressing a hand over his face in what appears to be something of melancholic rage.

Kylo’s lips threaten to twitch, threaten to make him lose composure and slip into a smile, just considering the possibilities of what will happen _after,_ when they leave and disappear to confess their devastation at losing a patient. Not that it matters, really, when Ren can easily take into account everything their procedure had been made to fix, and everything that had caused this supposed misfortune.

Armitage had killed himself.

He wonders what all the man swallowed, to make him turn such a wonderful shade of white, to make his skin glisten with sweat and lose consciousness so soon. He wonders what drove Armitage to it, whether he was as sick as Kylo was or whether he’d had another reason, his family or his career, his failure or wilted dreams. Perhaps he was desperate, though in a different manner than Kylo, needing an escape from the world indefinitely.

Kylo decides that it doesn’t matter, in the end.

Armitage is _his,_ now.

 

* * *

 

 

The graveside service is a mere two days later.

Kylo returns late into the night to unearth Armitage’s body from the grave. He’s even more beautiful bathed in moonlight, a wild fae-creature caught between dimensions, something ethereal and not of earth.

Kylo falls in love.

He has never believed there to be such a thing as love at first sight, but now, now he _understands._ It is maddening and freeing at once, the pieces falling into place as though a part of his life has finally been completed at long last, that missing puzzle-piece too long ignored and cast aside. It is strange and new, just as Armitage is strange and new, but it’s wonderful just the same.

Ben had never known love in his life, let alone a love so pure and contenting that it warmed Kylo’s very soul.

He will not destroy this; not this time.

 

* * *

 

 

When Kylo returns home, he strips Armitage bare and out of those too-large suit pants and button-down shirt that were unflattering toward his delicate figure. He’s a regal being, some aristocrat from the recesses of Ben’s fantasy world come alive at long last. Kylo dresses him in a long, white-gold robe with a tie around the front that hooks just over the scar in his abdomen, sutures still embedded in his belly with a meticulous hand. Armitage’s face is cast in a frown that hardly seems keen to disappear, but it is only fitting, as Kylo had not found himself capable of smiling at all, unless his teeth are gritted or he’s laughing from spite.

Once Armitage has been properly cleaned of all the filth lining his skin, has been decorated in the fashion of an emperor of some realm unknown to him, he is even prettier than Rey, even more handsome than Poe, even more _lovely_ than the first corpse he’d ever seen, the dark-skinned child with the fair features. His cheeks are cold to the touch as Kylo brushes across the divots of his bone structure with soft thumbs, holds him close to his chest with a kiss along his brow before surging to mouth at his lips, slide them apart and push his tongue _inside._

Armitage tastes of formaldehyde, but it is the only taste that Kylo has ever wanted.

He doesn’t waste time in kneeling between his lover’s now-spread legs, the ginger’s head propped up by a pillow and lithe body oh-so pliant beneath Kylo’s touch. He explores every inch of that beautiful frame, pressing Armitage apart and slicking lotion along his fingers, teasing them over a soft cock (yes, it feels better like this, Armitage is perfect) and down past his testes to run a stripe over his taut perineum, pulling him apart to glide a finger down that divot between his perfect asscheeks.

The crevasse parts for him as though it were longing for it, and Kylo slides the first finger in. The muscles don’t contract around him, but they are still stiff and locked tight, and he loves how warm Armitage is _inside,_ even when he’s not moving. His head lolls to one side, the hollow of his throat exposed to the heat of the room, and Kylo presses kisses along his regal throat, bites and licks at the unmoving Adam’s apple and that protruding collarbone, awed.

His fingers are scissoring now, pressing inside and curling, easing Armitage open for him with the utmost gentleness. Kylo’s efficient, knows where to tease, where Armitage would like it if he were still capable of moaning, of responding in kind. As it is, he’s very courteous, letting Kylo hike his legs up, moving his hand caught tight in Kylo’s grasp over his cock in fast strokes, jerking him to a greater state of arousal, his eyes shut and mouth parted in a soft whine.

When Kylo enters him, it’s a feeling like nothing he’s experienced before. Armitage grips him perfectly, solid and whole around him, and the press of their bodies slotting together is far too perfect to ignore. They were _made_ for this, meant to be together, even if Armitage had found Kylo a bit too late to truly enjoy it. His form is limp and manageable, aching to be opened and split apart, easing further when Kylo’s hands slide under his thighs and hook those elegant legs about his waist, pumping into Armitage’s pretty hole with a finesse that is rough and yet tender as it could ever be.

He loses track of how much time passes, locked in that tight embrace with Armitage’s lifeless form, making love and taking until his release surmounts and crashes upon him in a tidal wave so great it is surely the most exhilarating moment of Kylo’s life. When he pulls out, sees that line of cum leak from Armitage’s abused entrance, he presses another kiss to his lips for reassurance, embracing him in his arms and letting the other lie against him for support, overwhelmed with just how _soft_ the man is.

Faintly, he thinks he can hear a voice in his head, brusque, with a British accent.

_Ren._

“I love you,” he says aloud, teary-eyed. “Fuck, Hux, I _love you.”_

This is everything he ever wanted. He needs nothing else.


	2. grim reaper

Kylo is used to being alone.

It’s not something he’s ever particularly enjoyed, but it’s a truth all the same; he’s menacing, and brooding, and  _ mildly terrifying,  _ as he’d once heard Mitaka put it. It’s one of the reasons why he’s never had many (if any) friends; this darkness in his persona, his removal from his emotions and the things that aggravated him, his infrequent mood swings that were put on display during discussions or late nights spent working. This is one of the reasons, and more likely, the most prominent reason, why Kylo doesn’t spend much time around people he sees on a day-to-day basis.

However, much in the way that Rey had been, Armitage is different. Kylo knows that, and he has come to a consensus, after too long spent glancing over bodies and lines of black ink on white paper, that this man is the only companion he’s ever really needed. He’s been looking for a long time, though he only realized that in recent days, and he’d begun to come to the conclusion that he was never going to find a partner of any sort.

But then he did, and it’s almost like fate.

Hux (as Kylo had found he preferred to be called) listens, half-absorbed in sleep, but he watches Kylo with wide eyes and seems to nod in response to the deep-seated confessions that leave his lips. They range, usually, from dark things, things he would never tell anyone who he didn’t truly care for, and random thoughts, the type of dumb admissions he’s gotten in the shower or the reminiscence of the vestiges of a dream. He’ll hold Hux’s hand, sometimes, and squeeze the slight body against him for comfort; Hux never shoves him away.

Kylo has to acknowledge that he might be infatuated. 

He’s never known what it’s like to love before, and of course, he likely never will again-- not that he’ll need to, later. Not that he would  _ want  _ to, want to return to that half-life he was living, ignored, feared and ostracized by those familiar with him.

He manages to swipe some embalming fluid from the hospital on his next shift; the morgue is open to mortuary students, and it merely took an utterance of Professor Snoke’s name for them to let him in. He clenches the vials that he’s filled under his coat, tucks them into a side pocket hidden in the lining, uncertain of whether it is enough to last; of course, his main goal is for an immediate repair of the dullness that has begun to settle over Hux, nothing more. The rest will come later.

The injections do a good job, for awhile. In fact, they almost seem to restore the warmth that Hux had surrounded him with on that first night together, his lips easily drawn into an expression of something that’s partly welcoming and partly amused. Kylo spends a few hours every week on bathing Hux in his unused bathtub with a sponge and a few nice-smelling soaps; the floral scent covers up the musk that death has left, though there’s an obvious odor from the formaldehyde that remains that Kylo is nearly overjoyed about. The scent is perfect, especially for Hux, and he doesn’t wish it to ever disappear completely.

They’re happy together. Happy enough that Kylo can forget about all the pain, the anger, the  _ disaster  _ of his waking life when he returns home, enough that he can hold Hux and revel in that presence and that presence alone. Sometimes, if he’s truly distraught, they’ll make love; Hux’s hands threaded into his hair and his legs hiked over Kylo’s hips, or turned on his side, pressing back into each of the medical student’s thrusts, eager and compliant and  _ adoring.  _ They’ll kiss, occasionally, while Kylo is buried inside him, and Hux will watch him without complaint, gaging his reactions and admiring the lines of his face, unattractive to anyone else, it would seem.

He hears the other’s voice in his head sometimes;  _ Ren,  _ he’d say, and then,  _ You’re so much more than they’ve made you out to be. I know that. I know  _ you. 

_ It’s not enough,  _ Kylo would reply.  _ I’m not enough, as always. I’m emotional-- I’m… weak. Not strong, not yet. Not successful, like my family. Not  _ wanted.

_ I know,  _ Hux would answer, as Kylo’s thumb smoothed along his lower lip, and he smiled, faintly, prim and wicked.  _ Neither am I. But we were destined for greatness. To rule. To succeed. To put everyone else in their rightful places. Ren, you understand now, don’t you? You can’t keep letting them hold you back. _

It’s easier said than done.

 

* * *

 

 

When Ben Solo was born, his father had been absent.

His mother had wrapped him up and held him against her chest for a few brief moments before sending him off with one of the attending nurses to be fed and laid back in his crib; her priorities had been, even then, preoccupied with her position as State Governor. She’d cracked open files and signed documents during the passing days of bedrest, even as she attended to Ben. It had been obvious, even from Day One, that Leia Organa’s priorities came as work first and family second.

And, of course, it hadn’t changed in the slightest from then on.

That isn’t to say Ben had a  _ bad _ childhood, of course; for all intents and purposes, he supposed it would constitute as fairly average. His mother was around when she had a chance, and she’d always be there to patch him up when he got hurt or cart him off to boy scouts or school events and parties he was invited to attend. Leia had taken a diligence with making sure he felt loved, even as removed as she’d been, and she’d always be there at night to make sure he went to bed at a reasonable time and ate something for dinner. She was a mom, and perhaps not the most attentive one, but a mom nonetheless.

Han had been a different story.

Ben could hardly remember seeing his dad as a child, unless it was in passing; Han might stop by for a few days, hold Ben on his lap, watch some cartoons with him, but it was only temporary. There two days, gone for the next month. It continued in that fashion until Ben was fourteen, when Leia had to step in and bail Han out of jail on some charge of smuggling. Drugs, money, Ben never found out-- didn’t matter anyway. He wasn’t there. Or, well, he was, but not in any of the ways that counted; just as Leia was ever present, in ways that counted, but too involved in her political climb to dote on him.

He supposes that, when given news of Han’s passing at some point toward the end of his graduate degree, this is the reason he can’t find it in himself to attend. He’s there to comfort Leia over the phone, with soft whispers of “ _ I’m so sorry, Mom,”  _ and  _ “I know it’s got to be rough for you, I’m here if you need to talk, I’ll try and come back to see you soon, I promise.”  _ The grief in her voice is more hollow than he’s heard in a long time; it’s far too similar to his own tone, when dealing with peers or colleagues.

Kylo concedes, in the end, that this hollowness, and this removal, is one of the reasons he feels so much more at ease with corpses than he does with the living.

 

* * *

 

 

“My father died,” he confesses to Hux, at some point during the dead of night when he arrives home from the hospital, still half-dressed in grungy-scrubs that smell of body odor and the stench of death. He’s lying in bed now, unchanged, one arm haphazardly thrown over Hux’s stick-thin waist, held together tight with an array of bandages and divots that he’d inserted into the bones, made sure were able to keep his beautiful body upright and less rigid than before.

Kylo pushes his face into Hux’s shoulder, trying to hide the tears smeared across his cheeks, his teeth gritted and hair messy. “I’m supposed to feel bad, aren’t I? That he’s gone.”

_ You hardly knew him,  _ the voice in his head echoes, and Kylo has to laugh. Of course Hux understands. 

“I know. I mean-- I did know him, just… he just wasn’t there, not the way a father is supposed to be. But my mother is upset, and I should’ve been there to take care of her. I feel selfish, somehow, that I’m here with you instead-- lying in bed, in love, away from the pain and the heartbreak she must be feeling.”

_ Do you want to see her? _

“I don’t know,” Kylo confesses. “I’m considering it, but… I have so much to do, here. My graduation, work-- you. I need to keep you safe.”

A laugh.  _ I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself, Ren.  _

“I know. But-- but I feel better. When I’m around. To make sure.” He bites his lip, as though confessing a rooted embarrassment. “I’ve been worried. You don’t look so well, now. I thought the replacements would help--” he stroked a finger along Hux’s cool cheek, continuing. “Your eyes are fixed, at least. And your ribcage, spinal cord. I just don’t want you to have anymore problems. Your condition is so fragile right now.”

The glass implants had been difficult to procure, of course, and fitting them with Hux’s color even more harrowing a task. Once Kylo had gotten them back in the sockets, he’d hoped they might be able to make it another month, but all it seemed to do was make Hux look even more like a dead thing and not himself.

_ We’ll be hitting three months, tomorrow,  _ Hux reminds him, promptly.  _ You should smile, Kylo. I know you don’t often get a chance. _

Kylo hums and tucks himself against Hux’s back once more. “I’ll bring you a present. Thank you for reminding me.”

 

* * *

 

 

Kylo is certified as a mortician in the summer of that year; his graduation seems to span ages before it finally comes to an end, and the speeches are both monotonous and aggravating, hardly worth listening to. Even his, for that matter, is little more than useless when given before such a large audience; not that salutatorian is the most appreciated role in the first place, especially when the salutatorian is a ‘ _ creepy recluse who spends half his time screaming at irate med-students.’ _

He celebrates on his own, with Hux, that night; they pull back the covers on the bed and Kylo takes the opportunity to worship his boyfriend’s (as he supposes that’s what they are) body, the still decently soft skin and the beautiful, glassy eyes, those patiently wrapped fingers that are reverent on holding him and showing him love. Hux’s hole is warm around him, and impossibly wet, having been stretched open with a plug in his absence, waiting for this very moment. His thighs are easily parted, and he doesn’t object to any of Kylo’s sharp movements, aside from the rough grip on his hips, until they’re both finished and Kylo’s spent himself inside once more.

Kylo lies under the sheets with Hux’s head tucked in the crook of his neck, as he so often does, and breathes.

He realizes, too late, that there are tears lining his face.

_ “Fuck,”  _ comes the sharp hiss, as he recoils a bit, stunned. “I’m… sorry. Sorry, Armie. I didn’t mean to--”

_ Why are you crying? _ Hux asks, though the amusement in his voice can’t be contained even with their bodies so close together.  _ Isn’t this what you wanted? _

“Yeah, fuck, I just.” Kylo pauses. “I’m just a bit scared.”

_ Scared?  _ Hux asks, and for a second, Kylo thinks he might be empathetic, might try and hold him back, ease the misery of his inner turmoil, this constant feeling of  _ lost-unwanted-loser freak-heathen-disgusting. _

Instead, all he hears is a laugh.  _ That’s pitiful, Ren. _

“... what?” Kylo questions, unable to believe what he’s hearing.

_ It’s pitiful that after everything you’ve done you’re letting a few petty kids get to you. Just like Ben did. You’re weak. _

“I’m not--”

_ You’re  _ **_weak,_ ** _ and nobody could care less about what you do, much less when you’re like this. No wonder you don’t have any friends aside from me-- I can hardly stand you myself. _

It settles in his stomach like lead, the amalgamation of his fears, the words from classmates in school and the insecurities of his youth slamming into Kylo like a hurricane.

_ And he sees red. _

It’s a mere second before he’s on top of Hux, slamming him down against the mattress and smacking him across the face,  _ insolent,  _ tearing at the loose hems of his robe with coarse hands,  _ disgusting,  _ throwing blow after blow upon that alabaster torso, hearing the  _ crack-rip  _ of Hux’s mechanized joins and the wood he’d used to hold him together.  _ Foolish child,  _ the voice repeats in his head,  _ outcast, morbid, volatile,  _ and Kylo throws himself upon Hux, hands caught in a vice grip across his fragile throat, sinking in until he’s greeted with a  _ pop-pop-pop  _ as the tendons snap, then the supporting bone, and Hux falls limp like a ragdoll beneath him.

Kylo stands to his feet, staggering toward the window.

When it finally hits him, he  _ screams.  _ He screams,  _ how stupid to think you could even have one good thing, who could ever love you, you’re depraved, you’re grotesque, not even a corpse could want you back-- _

_ A corpse. _

And then it hits him.

Armitage was still a corpse, at the end of all this, just like he’d been when they met. He couldn’t-- he couldn’t  _ talk,  _ not really, even with his voice so clear and so resonant. He was…  _ a victim,  _ and he didn’t-- he never  _ hurt  _ Ren, had he? He didn’t have the capability…

_ Kylo had hurt him. _

The tears well once more, before they dissipate; Kylo doubts he can fix Armitage’s body now. He can’t  _ fix  _ this, and he hates himself for--

_ Everything. _

 

* * *

 

 

Kylo checks into work the next day with a sullen disposition and a hateful demeanor. He remembers, somehow, that he’s supposed to be catching the promotion that comes with the finish of his degree, supposed to move to the basement with the pathology department, and that he only has a short while to clear his stuff from the assistant’s lockers before it’s thrown away.

Somehow, he doesn’t think it matters.

He checks through the file of the most recent body laid out on the table, finding all the work in order, a messy bundle of papers that he’d thrown together over the past couple nights. The woman, whose name had only been listed in-file as  _ Phasma  _ in a messy scrawl atop the page, was meant to be prepared for a funeral tomorrow. She’d been homeless, even with her status as a former Marine, and Kylo has to wonder whether anyone will actually show up.

They wouldn’t show up to his, certainly. He knows that without even having to consider it.

When he gets his stuff ready to take off for the day, Kylo slinks away to the back room to draw a couple more syringes out of the stash of probably-not-sanitary (does it matter?) equipment atop the metal-rung shelves.  He places them in with his overwhelming bundle of notes that’s drawn together by a single paper clip, zips up his backpack and takes off. The scrubs that usually are a relief against his too-warm skin feel like a suit of iron, weighing him down with every minute he remains trapped inside. 

It’s a walking coffin, his second skin, and the irony of that isn’t lost on him.

After all, he’s a walking corpse, isn’t he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm. so sorry. I ruined. life.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a bit fucked in the head, if nobody's figured that out yet.
> 
> Hmu on tumblr [@symphorophilian](www.symphorophilian.tumblr.com) if you want to talk darkfic, Kylux, or kink shit.


End file.
